This Classic Jack commentary is excerpted from Jack Myers' 1998 book: Reconnecting with Customers: Building Brands and Profits in The Relationship Age.® For more than two decades, Jack Myers has been the media industry's leading analyst, researcher and advisor on relationships among marketers, agencies and media sellers, providing business development services and custom insights on relationship best practices to more than 250 companies. Jack's stunningly visionary perspectives from 1998 focus on the emergence of a new age in media and advertising, an age that would be defined by relationships. To obtain a full copy of The Relationship Age series or to discuss Jack's consulting and advisory services, contact jm@jackmyers.com
Originally Published in 1998: The rate of change that we are currently experiencing in the media industry will continue to accelerate. The media marketplace, once dominated by three major broadcast networks, has been splintered into hundreds - even thousands - of small programmers. These splintered pieces are not valued by how many people they reach, but rather by the quality of their relationships with their audiences. Those programs, networks, magazines, newspapers, or on-line services that have branded attributes provide advertisers with the opportunity to connect with a pre-qualified consumer in a complementary environment.
In this new media age, defined by the remote control device, the Internet, and digital television, the power is in the hands of the individual. Viewers are programming their television to watch only what they want to watch. They are eliminating commercials simply by zapping away, turning down the sound, or time shifting to watch prerecorded programs when it's convenient for them. Customers are shopping and making buying decisions online, and at the touch of a button they have access to an unlimited wealth of additional services.
The media have empowered customers to zero base how, when, and with whom they conduct business. Yet technological advances in media are also providing advertisers with advanced tools and resources for direct relationship-building with customers.
Never has the power of the customer been greater. Never has the ability of media to communicate with, influence, and interact directly with customers been more pervasive. Advertisers who develop innovative strategies to respond to this new customer power and who effectively channel media resources will build their brands and their profits in The Relationship Age.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to be a part of media, marketing, and advertising enterprises at the end of the 20th century are participating in and contributing to the most exciting and influential period in the history of global communications and capitalism. By the year 2015, we will be looking back at these years in awe of the managers and companies that led their industries through these extraordinarily tumultuous times. In 2015, we will look back at today's technologies, systems, and organizational structures and marvel at how prehistoric they seem. Many of today's leading companies will have disappeared, and new companies will be the hot growth stocks. We can be certain that these new companies will fit the definition of a brand and that their successes will have been built by close attention and responsiveness to their customers.
About Jack Myers: For more than two decades, Jack Myers has been the media industry's leading analyst, researcher and advisor on relationships among marketers, agencies and media sellers, providing business development services and custom insights on relationship best practices to more than 200 marketers, agencies, media companies and industry service providers. Jack can be reached at jm@jackmyers.com
The Relationship Age is a registered trademark of Jack Myers.
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